This invention relates generally to devices for facilitating the making of radiographs for medical applications, methods of making such devices and methods of using such devices.
It is a common practice in the taking of medical X-rays to place a preshaped lead marker on a portion of the patient's body to be examined. This marker serves to provide a visual reference point in the resultant X-ray film to facilitate the reading of the X-ray. In particular, one of the most common instances of such a use is in the taking of mammary X-rays. Thus, in such applications a lead ball-like marker is disposed on the patient's nipple and the X-ray taken. The resulting mark which appears on the X-ray film provides the radiologist with a visual indication of the location of the nipple as a reference point to other body structures shown in the developed radiographic image.
Marking devices in the form of plural elongated radio-opaque members disposed parallel to one another on a substrate, e.g., a sheet of transparent plastic, have also been used by being disposed across a portion of the patient's body being X-rayed (or CT scanned) to provide a series of parallel lines in the developed image to facilitate the location of desired internal body structure(s) in that image.
While such prior art marking devices are generally suitable for their intended purposes they nevertheless leave something to be desired from the standpoints of ease of use, weight, cost, disposability, etc.
In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 345,920 filed on May 1, 1989 entitled Image Location Marking Devices for Radiographs, Method of Making and Methods of Use, of which I am a coinventor, which is assigned to the same assignee as this invention whose disclosure is incorporated by reference herein, there is disclosed and claimed apparatus and methods which overcome the disadvantages of the prior art. The device of that invention is arranged for producing plural lines on a film bearing a radiographic image of a portion of the body of a living being to facilitate the location of part of the being's body within that image. The device comprises a flexible substrate formed of a porous, translucent or transparent material having lines of a radio-opaque material disposed thereon and is made by the application a slurry of a plastisol material and lead particles in the line pattern on the substrate and then drying the slurry. The device is used by applying it over a selected portion of the body of a being, disposing a radiosensitive film under the selected portion of the being's body, exposing the film to radiation, and thereafter developing the film. The resulting radiographic image of the selected portion of the being's body thus has indicator lines crossing it which facilitate the demarcation of a desired portion of that image. The device disclosed includes plural opening, e.g., slits, in the substrate at intersections of various lines so that a marking instrument, e.g., a marking pen, can be applied therethrough while the device is on the being to mark the body of the being at the selected location.